Hi guys, sorry but I just returned from vacation and have only just finished wading through my backlog of emails and voice-mails.
Several items to address:
1) Damaged Transporter: First of all, we double-check ALL products before they are shipped. I design the mods. My techs implement the work. In this case, my lead tech does all of the Transporter mods and is very good and consistent about his work. He bench tests each unit and tests them with music. I then bench test them again and listen to the unit in our Reference system, to be sure that the sound is right. I also typically run the units for 24 hours plus., prior to shipping. The unit in question on this thread WAS double-checked and tested and we have tried to trouble-shoot the issues over the phone already and via photos of internals from the customer. Ted was good enough as were many of you, to attempt to help the customer trouble-shoot the issues. I have concluded that for some reason, the heater circuit is not operational and the tubes (just signal tubes) are not warming/lighting up. The rectifier tube is working properly and its filament (heater) supply is working. The rectifiers filament supply is separate from the output tube heater/filament supply. If the heaters were on, but plate voltage was not (output signal tubes), then there would be a VERY weak signal, but no hum. In this case, the circuit sees the tube as an open circuit, because the plate voltage is present, but the heater voltage is not and the tube is unable to conduct signal. We have ascertained that the Transporter itself is functioning properly, but somehow in shipping, the tube circuit was damaged. We will arrange for FedEx to pickup the unit on our account, Monday morning and will proceed to address the issue and FedEx the unit back, all at our expense. Things do happen sometimes that are simply beyond our control. All I can do is address these issues promptly as they come about.
2) Volume control and -dB RE bit dropping. I know that a digital attenuator does attenuate by dropping bits. I will have to crunch the numbers to see exactly at what point the resolution is limited to 16 bits. The important thing to remember is this. Unless you HAVE a hi-rez download that is 24/96, then you are listening to a 16/44.1 CD that has been 'ripped' to the hard drive. While some programs appear to upsample the sampling rate to 48Khz from 44.1Khz (Poikosoft - thanks Danny Kaey!), they CANNOT add 8 bits that are not present, between the 16 bit CD and the 24 bit max resolution of the DAC. As such, it is my understanding that you will not hear any audible limitation until which point, the signal is reduced to < 16 bit. I will have to see how the math works out in -dB for this 8 bit reduction in digital sample.
3) The Music Vault. First of all, I apologize to Srajan for not being available to assist with this. I had the same problem here until I realized that I had to disable one of my firewalls in order for my laptop to access the workgroup named 'WORKGROUP'. After this time, it was no problem. I found the Music Vault to be seamless after this was addressed.
Srajan, I will email you personally to this effect also, but I want to clarify a point. While the Transporter can and DOES function as a DAC for a variety of digital inputs, WiFi or Ethernet via computer of course, but also via disk spinner or other music server such as the Olive (I was personally not that enthused with the Olive product and decided not to modify it for this reason. IMHO the computer should NOT be in the same box as the DAC and digital input circuitry - too much noise).
I want to STRESS the following. The STRENGTH of the Transporter, is when used as a DAC and digital input receiver for streaming digital data (WiFi or Ethernet). This has to do with the issue of jitter and its impact on the sound. While I don't have the necessary tools to measure jitter, I can tell you that my ears tell me the negative effects of jitter are almost entirely eliminated when the Transporter is fed data via computer. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not claiming that jitter isn't there, but simply that my ears tell me that the effect of jitter appears to be eliminated.
When I have used the Transporter fed via disc spinner, the issue of jitter is still limited to the quality of the Transport (not Transporter). When fed signal from a CD transport/spinner, you are still dealing with either a toslink, BNC (spdif), RCA (spdif), or XLR (AES/EBU). I.E., when using the Transport simply as a DAC, it will perform well, but its true strengths will not be revealed. I believe the reason to be the result of inherent jitter in the digital signal that is present to some degree with any disc spinner. The word 'spinner' is actually quite relevant in my mind, because I believe this has a lot to do with the presence of jitter. A CD Transport includes a mechanical device, spinning a Disc that is NOT 100% uniform or balanced. You have a laser then, tracking the data on the disc and sending it bit by bit through the digital cable, to the DAC where it gets reassembled, reclocked and then converted via the internal DACs.
The strength of the computer connection, be it wifi or ethernet, is that the data is buffered via the computers memory and the transmission of digital data is very different than that of a SPDIF or AES/EBU digital format (standard CD transport). I honestly don't claim yet to fully understand the nature of clocking within the computer environment as it is transmitted via Wifi or Ethernet, but my ears tell me that jitter is virtually eliminated and there is NO limitation to bandwidth, dynamics or resolution.
The point of this for you, Srajan, is to stress the best way to evaluate the Transporter is via computer server connection. It will also be of value to hear how it performs as a standalone DAC fed via conventional CD 'spinner' of course. I realize that we did not send you a stock unit and this would be telling to evaluate the stock vs. modified Transporter. I feel that the performance of the modified Transporter is strong enough that I urge you to compare it, when connected to a computer server connection, to the best digital that you have at hand. I believe, in this configuration, that the ModWright Modified Transporter shows the truth strength of this new digital format and shows why I feel this to be the 'new frontier' of digital and the logical progression of technology in audio.
4) RE use of the Olive as music server for the Transporter...this should work well, provided that the digital out from the Olive is via ethernet or wifi vs. SPDIF or AES/EBU via toslink, BNC, RCA or XLR. Again, if not connecting to the Olive as a computer server, then we are back to the SPDIF/ AES/EBU interface again, which is inferior to using a network interface with the Transporter IMHO.
5) RE Hi-Rez downloads...I would recommend trying this also. I did download quite a bit of music from Music Giants, but was unaware of the copy protection and was very frustrated to learn that much of what I purchased could not be streamed without burning to CD and then ripping the CD back to the computer. In this case, I STILL heard digital glitches in the music that was 'processed' in this way. HOWEVER, the hi-rez downloads are NOT copy-protected and are very good.
6) I will personally write an 'owners manual' for the Transporter and will document my process for ripping discs with or without the Music Vault, as well as software I have used and detailed instructions for how to operate the Transporter. To be honest, I assumed that people would rely on the Transporter's documentation for operation and the impact of our mods on this process is limited to the fact that you have to flip a switch to turn the tube stage on. However, I admit that I am not typically inclined to read owners manuals first and a brief how-to from us would be very helpful.
That's about all I have for now. Srajan, I appreciate your review and I trust that Neil will assist you in resolving any operational issues there and I look forward to reading the final results. Thanks to all who have contributed here and for those who understand that sometimes things DO get damaged in shipping. The important thing is that Customer Service and Satisfaction are KEY in ModWright's approach to business.
Thanks and take care,
Dan W.
